


Not to be Constrained to Love

by RavenpuffLove



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: BAMF Hermione Granger, Canon Compliant, Harry Potter is So Done, Jealousy, Mythology References, POV Ron Weasley, Past Lives, Ron Weasley is a Good Friend, imagining characters complexly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:14:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24617410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenpuffLove/pseuds/RavenpuffLove
Summary: Hermione makes a surprising discovery during an Arithmancy experiment and Ron must deal with the fallout of truly knowing himself, and what his mistakes could lead to if he doesn't fix them this time around.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Lavender Brown/Ron Weasley
Comments: 13
Kudos: 43
Collections: Before the Spring Snaps: The Classics





	Not to be Constrained to Love

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [BTSS2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/BTSS2020) collection. 



> This was written for the Fairest of the Rare's "Before the Spring Snaps" fest for 2020! I really loved writing this and I am so glad I decided to participate!
> 
> My prompt was  
> Lancelot and Guinevere (Le Morte d'Arthur)
> 
> Thank you so much to my beta granger_danger for their hard work and all of the support. This piece is as always greatly improved by your attention and I honestly leaned on your wonderful commentary when the going got hard!
> 
> I don't own this and I make no money off of it. . . but also the person who does own this universe is a TERF and she can get stuck in the mud. *shrug*
> 
> *Some lines taken directly from text in order to preserve canon compliance*

Hermione walked so quickly down the corridor that her curls bounced madly about her shoulders, as if they too were imbued with the nervous energy that seemed to pour off of her. Ron followed just behind her, pulled along by her surprisingly strong grip and losing all sense of where he was in the castle. He felt like he should know every corridor after six years of living here, but at a certain speed the stone and blurred portraits all looked the same. 

“'Mione, I swear if this is just you pulling me off to nag me about studying again I'm going to hex you,” Ron moaned as she twisted him around yet another corner. “Besides Harry's just as distracted as me with his 'Malfoy's a Death Eater' obsession and you aren't dragging  _ him _ around the castle in the middle of the night!”

“Just shut up, Ronald!” Hermione sighed. “We're almost there.” 

She stuck her head around a corner and then quickly pulled him with her into a classroom. After shutting the door, Hermione pulled out her wand and began to perform several locking charms, leaving Ron to look about the room. 

He considered for a moment that it was possible she'd completely lost her mind. 

The abandoned classroom had a blackboard on each wall and every single one of the boards was covered with long strings of numbers and runes. Ron hadn't taken Arithmancy, but he could recognize a calculation when he saw one; it was just like the basic math his mother had taught him in the kitchen, only with symbols that made no sense. Occasionally, among the dense blocks of arcane formulas there would be a name circled or underlined. Most of them were familiar to him. On one wall he saw Dumbledore, Merlin, Voldemort, Snape, Nimue. On another wall he even found his own name, Hermione, and Harry, all written so closely together they almost overlapped, but none of it made sense. He saw his father’s name trailing off after Harry's, and strange names that tickled something in his memory buried in among the others, like Mordred and Gawain. 

All in all, it looked like something Luna would scribble about the possible location and connections of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. 

Ron turned back to Hermione to find her still locking the door, having moved fully on to charms he'd never heard. She looked pale, her golden skin having gone sallow, freckles standing out starkly on her nose. He'd never seen her look quite so worried, not even when she'd mucked up her Polyjuice with that cat hair or last year when she'd been recovering from that curse of Dolohov's. She looked somehow both older and younger than she should, as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders but she wished she could run to her mum. 

By the time she levitated a desk under the door knob, he'd had enough. 

“Hermione,” He grabbed her arm gently and lowered her wand. “Tell me what's wrong.”

She jerked her hand back from him, the color returning to her face as she pointed at the calculations on the wall, voice shaking a little as she asked. 

“What do you know about Arithmancy, Ronald?” 

“It's something like math? I think maybe it has something to do with Divination?” 

Hermione snorted. 

“Not exactly, but I see where you'd get that idea,” she explained, looking very tired. “You can use Arithmancy to create a map of possible outcomes. Honestly ,you'd probably love that bit, it's very strategic.” 

“Is that what this is?” Ron asked, trying hard not to follow the strange glowing calculations that connected the names. “Some kind of future map? What the hell does Merlin have to do with anything?”

“This isn't predictive Arithmancy.” Hermione paced, not quite meeting his eyes, as if she were confessing something embarrassing. “I actually thought about dabbling in it when Professor Vector assigned us a personal research project, but I didn't think I had enough of the current war's variables to do anything but possibly wrongly influence myself. So, I decided to do something fun instead.” 

She started to giggle and the sound ran up Ron's spine like a chill finger. 

“There is an Arithmantic formula that is designed to help you find a unique runic combination that represents you on a soul deep level. That combination can be used to refine predictive Arithmancy, but it is also used in tandem with a certain ritual to reveal one's past lives, if you have any.” 

Merlin, Nimue, Mordred. . . Arthur. 

“I take it you didn't find out you were someone's scullery maid.” 

“Not exactly.”

“Why does this have you so bothered, 'Mione?” Ron put a hand on her shoulder, trying to stop her nervous pacing as her frantic energy started to rub off on him. “It's nothing to worry about, it's already happened.” 

“It has, and I think it's happening again.” She whispered gravely.

“What?” 

“It would be easier to show you,” she finally said, digging around in her robes. “I worked out your runes.” She pulled a small vial full of faintly glowing purple liquid out of her pocket. “This is the potion. We can do the ritual right now, I will keep the door locked so you can finish. It will take a few hours.” 

“Why did you wait until Harry was off with Dumbledore, Hermione?”

“It's private.” Hermione turned her face away from him, toying with one of the curls at the side of her face. “Trust me, Ron.” 

She didn't call him that often. It wasn't never but Hermione usually insisted on calling him by his full name,  _ Ronald.  _ She'd told him on multiple occasions that she thought it was a perfectly lovely name and she didn't understand why he insisted on shortening it. But when she said it like this,  _ Ron _ , all posh with the 'n' drawn out on her tongue as if she longed to finish it off right, he couldn't say no. 

“Alright,” he relented, raising both hands in obvious surrender. “But I'm telling Harry if it seems like I should, 'Mione. No matter what you say.” 

“That's fair,” she said, half distracted as she focused on transfiguring the desk chair into something with more cushioning. “Just sit here and hold the vial. Wait until I'm done drawing the runic circle around you, then drink the potion.”

Ron grabbed the vial and sat down in the chair, grateful she'd taken the time to make it more comfortable, as the seats often felt unbearably hard even just in a normal class period. Hermione crawled on her hands and knees as she drew inscribed runes around him in chalk and Ron felt his face flood with heat as he realized she had unbuttoned the collar of her Oxford. From this angle, with her tie loosened, he could see down into the shadowed valley between her breasts. 

She closed the circle with five runes, writing them in a bold, large hand that overshadowed the long formulaic inscription all around them. 

“Time to drink,” she said, wiping at a bead of nervous sweat that had started to trickle down from her hairline. “You'll feel a little weird for a minute but at least it tastes nice.” 

It did taste nice. The last clear thought Ron had after tipping back the small swallow of luminous purple potion was that it tasted like blackberries and moonlight. Then the room began to spin around him and he felt a bit queasy, leaning forward onto his knees as everything tinted a misty lavender and he lost track of his body; the normally defined edges of himself stretched and faded until he wasn't sure he even still existed. 

_ He came back to himself in a body that was strangely familiar but not the one he'd left behind in the classroom.  _

_ His hands were tan as they'd never been in his life, not a freckle in sight. He was seated on a horse and it felt natural, even though he'd sworn he'd never ridden one in his life. He could feel the power of the animal beneath him and smell the warm, earthy scent wafting up from it, but when he wanted to drop the leather lead and reach a hand forward to stroke the silky looking mane in front of him, Ron found that he couldn't. He was simply a passenger in this body, an observer.  _

_ He suddenly remembered what he'd said to Hermione. Everything he would see had already happened.  _

_ Everything he saw sparked a jolt of memory. The smell of a pig roasting over open coals in front of a shop brought back the same smell in the open air kitchen of Joyous Gard, the castle he'd called home when he wasn't travelling. A spirited greeting of 'Welcome Home Sir du Lac!” brought back his name in this time, Lancelot. His hands lightly pulled to one side of their own accord and the horse rounded a corner onto a long straight thoroughfare. At the end of the wide road stood a sturdy fortress and while it looked nothing like Hogwarts or any other castle he could imagine, Ron knew that he was within the walls of Camelot, and looking up at the residence of Arthur Pendragon, his liege and dearest friend.  _

_ Time moved strangely for Ron in this state, and without remembering how he arrived, he found himself striding into an enormous room, filled entirely by a large round table, dozens of chairs seated around it. At the far end of the room sat a redheaded man. He was angled so that he could look out one of the large windows and wearing an unmistakable crown.  _

_ Ron didn't need the twining emotions of loyalty, fondness, and jealousy that seeped up from his former body to tell him that the man was the King, the man to whom he owed fealty and had sworn his life. It was obvious, but a secondary recognition shocked him so thoroughly that he thought he might break whatever trance had forced him to stillness; He even wondered if back at Hogwarts with Hermione his vacant body might whisper the familiar name.  _

_ Harry.  _

_ Though the somber ginger man under the crown looked nothing like his best friend, Ron knew him instantly, the recognition vibrating through him. There was no denying it. He didn't understand exactly how the magic worked but he could feel the way their souls pulled together. Drawn in some way he did not understand, just as he had felt compelled to seek Harry out that first day on the train, despite the shame of having nothing to share but the half-squished corned beef sandwiches in his pocket.  _

_ He didn't know how long he'd been speaking to this version of his friend. The words felt strange and formal in his mouth, barely English at all, but he could feel the pleasure of a joke landing well as his chest shook, laughing to himself, and even on another face he could recognize Harry's smile, grateful and, as always, a little sad. Other men had entered the room as they spoke and his memory woke to them. He knew Percival as Dean, Palamedes and Safir were his own twin brothers, and Gawain was undoubtedly Neville. Not every face came with that reverberating soul deep knowledge of a spirit in two bodies, but no one was unfamiliar.  _

_ They chose their seats, all speaking well of the new table, a bridegift from Arthur's new father-in-law, and as he relaxed into the lively, half-remembered conversation, a glint of gold caught his eye from the doorway. His head turned, and the world slowed with it, gaze suddenly locked on the woman standing in the doorway.  _

_ Her golden brown hair hung over her shoulder in two long, neat plaits. Gold glinted at the sleeves and belt of her long gown and from the simple circlet on her head. His eyes found hers and even past the shocking hazel color Ron could never have mistaken her for anyone other than Hermione.  _

_ The girl he loved, even if he couldn't seem to find it in him to tell her. The girl he'd do about anything for: follow spiders into the Forbidden Forest, fight Death Eaters, even drink a mysterious potion to go on some sort of mad vision quest. Even in this body, this time, something in him reacted to her almost violently, his heart catching in his throat and then crashing almost immediately into the pit of his stomach as Arthur boomed from behind him.  _

_ “Wife! Guinevere! Come, meet my most faithful friends. Let them know your fair face that they might know for what we fight.”  _

_ Their story rushed past him then in lighting fast glimpses, each flash bringing with it another crashing wave of emotion.  _

_ Her narrow hips flush between his legs as they ride away from a burning tower, his horse frothing at the mouth as he pushes him onward, away from her captors.  _

_ A joyous return to Camelot, cheering crowds greeting them and the feel of Arthur's sword on his shoulder as he is knighted, promoted to his right hand side at the round table.  _

_ Churning jealousy in his stomach as his King kisses his Queen full on the mouth after a night of wine and feasting.  _

_ The pink flicker of her tongue as she says his name and places her handkerchief on the tip of his lance at a tournament, Arthur absent and favor bestowed on him instead.  _

_ A hot, hard flash of desire as he sees her kneel to pluck a rose in the garden, the low neckline of her dress revealing the edge of her breasts to him from his watch on the low wall.  _

_ Rumpled bed clothes that smell as much of Arthur's sweat as Guinevere's perfume.  _

_ Guilt so painful and deserved that he contemplates hanging himself.  _

_ Harry's soft, sad smile in a legendary King's face, knowing and resigned.  _

_ Whispers of impropriety, from the King's nephew.  _

_ The flashes of his past life come faster then, hazily winding into one another: Guinevere's frightened face as they threaten to burn her; his sword clashing against Arthur's on a battlefield; Guinevere in Joyous Gard, stripped of her queenly regalia and all the more beautiful to him; the painful loneliness of exile, bereft of his duty, his friend, and his lover; grief like a knife in his gut as he hears that Arthur has fallen in battle, though he's named victorious over Mordred; choking tears as he arrives to find Guinevere buried beside her husband.  _

With a queasy rush, Ron is back in the classroom, his hands suddenly feeling too large at the ends of his thin arms and looking straight into the deep brown eyes of the girl his soul had always known he would love for the rest of his life. 

“Hermione,” he whispered, her other name sticking in the back of his throat. “How do we stop it?” 

She was crying. 

“It's not exactly the same,” she said, reaching up to wipe tears off his face so tenderly that it felt like his heart had gotten itself stuck in his throat. “I was property then. A bargaining chip. I've got more choice this time. Har—” She stopped herself, shaking her head sharply. “Arthur, he loved me, but it was duty as much as anything else. He knew what we were doing and let it go on.”

“He did.”

“As best I can figure we've got two big mistakes to fix. The first was my being married off like chattel. Luckily, that one is already taken care of. I'm telling you right now that Harry Potter is like my brother and I've got no interest in him whatsoever.” Ron wished he could believe her, but he'd seen the way she looked at him in the past. Guinevere felt something for Arthur and he'd never quite been able to trust anything she said to him when he was Lancelot. “The second is not putting Harry first when he needed us most. I can't prove it, because I haven't had the bad fortune of meeting him in this life, but I'm certain Voldemort and Mordred are the same, though I can't figure out how they are related, and that seems important.” She was pacing again, the frustration rolling off her in waves “Until he's dead, this—” She gestured between them emphatically. “Can't happen.” 

“Hermione, I—” 

“Ron, don't,” she interrupted. “Please don't say it. You don't need to — I already know. But hearing it will make everything so much harder. We've just got to wait. Just a while.” 

“Just until the bloody war is over,” Ron finally whispered, balling his hands into fists at his sides to keep himself from reaching out to her.

“That's right,” Hermione replied with a watery smile. “Just until the bloody war is over.” 

* * *

Not admitting he loved Hermione was the hardest thing that Ron had ever done. 

It was always there, simmering just under everything he did. He'd be flying during Quidditch practice and he'd suddenly remember the strawberry sweet scent of her hair and almost fall off his broom. At every meal he'd be trying to enjoy his food and he'd look up to catch her eyes on him and suddenly feel like he wanted to fall through his seat into the dungeons because he didn't want her to see him with chicken grease on his face or his mouth half open; he wanted to be her hero. He tried his best to be what she needed him to be, studying, practicing his defensive spells, putting aside his petty jealousy and backing up Harry, but even then he found himself frustrated as again and again he measured up short of what Hermione deserved. 

So he stopped trying. 

Snogging Lavender Brown was the opposite of loving Hermione. 

It was easy. She was always up for it, and if Ron was honest, she did most of the work. He could pull her into his lap and she would press right up against him, her lipgloss filling his senses with the taste and smell of spiced pumpkin-juice. When they had privacy, she would shove his hands under her jumper, moaning breathily and shifting in his lap so that he could feel the heat of her grinding against him. 

He couldn't lie, it felt good. Not just physically, even if rutting against her in dark alcoves was perhaps the best he'd ever felt in his entire life, but mentally. It felt good to be so obviously wanted, to not be someone's secret. As awful as the guilt was when he looked up and saw the hurt in Hermione's eyes, when he was snogging Lavender he could almost forget about the love sitting heavily in his chest, so long as he didn't look at the soft frizz that gathered around the edges of Lavender's curls as she began to sweat. But no amount of wrapping himself around his girlfriend could keep away the dreams. 

Every night he found himself back in the cobbled streets of Camelot, watching the unattainable, beautiful wife of his best friend and king move through her life. The only difference from his trip back through time into his former life was that here it was Hermione, his Hermione. Wild curls busting through the strange ancient circlets and looking wistfully at ornately decorated books in the castle's library. Ron called out to her but she never seemed to hear him, no matter how loud he screamed and no matter how hard he tried to move towards her, to follow her as she walked away, he could not reach her. 

The dreams would continue, looping until he woke soaked in his own sweat and the heavy weight of the love he held for her felt almost too much to bear. 

The year wore on and the pain of loving Hermione only grew until it seemed to fill every waking hour that he didn't spend tangled up in the consuming sensation of Lavender's skin under his hands. 

Until Christmas. 

Ron knew that he had eaten a chocolate cauldron from Harry's stash but he barely tasted it. 

He was suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling of desperation for Romilda Vane, but more than that the sudden weightlessness of his chest. He felt light, as if he might float away. Everything except getting to Romilda was inconsequential, but even the euphoric love he felt for her was ghostly and lacking the pressing need of centuries that had been bearing down on him. 

The momentary relief from his desperation for Hermione was lovely. Ron felt like he could float along in the fog for the rest of his life, not really doing much of anything and ignoring the vague shiftiness in the back of his mind. But if not loving her for a second was like floating, then the guilt of the love returning was like being crushed. 

A love potion. 

That's all it had taken for him to stop caring, to forget her. He had completely lost control of himself and once he'd regained his senses he was so ashamed that he didn't even question the spirits Slughorn pressed into his hands. It didn't matter what he was drinking or why a Professor would give it to him as long as he could get drunk enough to forget again. 

Once Hermione had told him that some Muggles who believed in magic thought that any magic they did, good or bad, came back on them only three times worse or better than what they originally did. He'd scoffed at the idea of Muggles trying to do magic, but he was suddenly a believer after he took the first sip of mead. 

The sticky-sweet drink was delicious, but as soon as Ron swallowed he knew something was wrong. His muscles pulled and jerked so that his whole body jerked and his mouth tasted like blood and vomit. He felt, deep down inside him where he thought his soul must be, that it was punishment for wanting to forget Hermione again, for just a second. For all the hours he'd spent wrapped up in Lavender even when he saw how much it hurt her. 

He didn't even know how he'd gotten to the floor. He could hear Harry panicking and then Ron realized that he couldn't breath. His fingertips felt like they were on fire. Someone shoved something in his mouth and he tried his best to swallow what felt like a huge rock before he lost consciousness.

He dreamed of Hermione again. It was the same as always. She went about her life in Camelot, wearing the trappings of her past life, unreachable and perfect. He followed her, desperately mouthing her name, not able to make any sounds even as his throat felt raw with screaming. Only somehow, as he fell to his knees too weak to continue calling out to her, she seemed to hear him. 

Suddenly she came to him, easily crossing the distance that Ron couldn't no matter how hard he ran. Her delicate, ringed fingers wrapped neatly round his hand and for the first time since he'd visited his past life, he felt at peace. 

* * *

Ron thought that perhaps he wasn't a very good person. 

He'd always worried that he wasn't. That he was too selfish to be good. 

The locket agreed with him. It made him think about things he didn't want to think about. 

_ It’s easy to share when you don't have anything worth sharing, _ it seemed to whisper at night as he laid awake on his cot in the tent, his stomach aching and empty.  _ Who cares if you were willing to give away half of a terrible corned beef sandwich or let someone share your tiny corner of an overstuffed house? That didn't mean anything. It’s when you have something that it really matters whether or not you’d share it. _

Harry's friendship was the first thing he'd ever had to himself, and he'd never been very good at sharing it. Hermione had been the exception, and he still felt wicked jealousy in his chest any time he could tell that Harry wanted to side with her, even if he never said so. No matter how many times Harry chose him, Ron felt deep down like it didn't make sense for Harry to even want to be his friend. 

It was worse with Hermione.

He had felt how much she loved him, more often than he could count. She was unshakable. Always by his side. At night, sometimes he'd feel her reach across the gap between their camp beds to hold his hand, her thumb rubbing gently across his knuckles, as if she was just as desperate for the comfort of his touch as he was for hers. 

But Ron had doubts. 

_ She's so short-tempered with you _ , the inky, viscous presence of the locket in his mind said,  _ Nothing like she is with Harry. _ Ron couldn't help but believe it was true. Hermione did seem to turn her irritation on him when she wore the locket. If it was pulling up their insecurities, and his was jealousy, what did it mean that when she wore it she seemed to always nag him? He couldn't see any other reason for it but that she resented her destiny; she resented it because it was him she was meant for and not Harry. 

Maybe they weren't even right about what it all meant. 

Maybe they were all back together again because what was supposed to change is that she was supposed to choose Harry.

Maybe he was just in the way _.  _

He certainly seemed to be when it came to the research. 

It was another in a long string of nights with them at the little camp table and him laying on his camp bed, seething as they debated asinine theories about how much Dumbledore might or might not have told them. He was so tired of it, and when he was wearing the locket he couldn't seem to think of anything productive to add at all, not that they ever seemed to notice he wasn't contributing. Hermione just plowed ahead with her logic and Harry only seemed to think of him when he wanted someone to back up his most recent ridiculous idea. 

“Oh, remembered me, have you?” Ron said with a snort after one such attempt. 

He couldn't even really explain why the fight happened, or remember what he had said thirty minutes later. What he remembered was the seething feeling in his gut as Hermione looked at him over Harry's shoulder, her brown eyes ringed with exhaustion and squinting with exasperation. The locket whispering,  _ They wish you weren't here, you're a burden,  _ in his mind as he tried to even keep track of what he was saying, every grievance he had kept locked away tumbling out of his mouth. All the fears about his family and that secret, ugly feeling that his two best friends couldn't understand what it was like because they'd already lost their families. 

“THEN GO,” Harry finally spat, ending the argument in a flurry of insults, Hermione forced to throw a  _ Protego _ between them to keep Ron from escalating into violence as Harry implied Ron just wanted to taste his Mum's cooking again. “Leave the Horcrux.” 

Ron threw the awful thing into a nearby chair, the oily feeling of it still crawling over every inch of his body. He didn't even hear Hermione's answer when he asked if she was coming; he didn't need to. He could see it in her eyes, their deep brown full of pleading and disappointment that made him want to stay and  _ Avada _ himself at the same time as he saw her lips form Harry's name.

“I get it. You choose him,” he said, his heart breaking as he turned and stomped out of the tent, hoping the pounding rain hid his tears as he walked out past the wards and apparated away. 

It took all of five minutes for him to regret it. 

As soon as he had more than a couple feet between himself and the Horcrux, everything he loved about his friends came rushing back and he remembered the promise he and Hermione had made: put Harry first. The feelings barely had time to sink in before he'd stumbled into a group of Death Eater wannabes, clearly desperate for someone to turn in but not bright enough to decide whether he was Stan Shunpike or not. He managed to Apparate away, aiming for where he'd left Harry and Hermione and ready to absolutely grovel for acting like a git. 

Only he splinched himself again. The two nails ripped from the ends of his fingers bled more than he thought possible, the nail beds burning like fire in the open air. He hadn't even managed to apparate back where he should be. He stumbled around for hours in the dark and into the cold light of morning, but it was no use. 

They'd gone. 

* * *

Holding a sword felt good, familiar. Ron's muscles weren't used to swinging it, but luckily he didn't have to fight with it in this life. He just had to put his weight into it as he slammed it into the locket, once Harry whispered it open with parseltongue. A single moment of decisive action. It would be easy. Far easier than trekking through the wilderness after elusive balls of light, trying to find his way back. Easier than pulling Harry out of that pond, freezing and terrified they would both drown. 

The locket sprang open as Harry wheezed out a strangled hiss that Ron recognized from second year, a sound that still haunted him in his sleep years later. What was inside the locket was worse than he could ever have imagined. Closed, it had whispered, suggested, that his worst fears might be true. Open, it  _ showed _ him. 

_ I have seen your heart, and it is MINE,  _ the voice that had plagued his mind hissed, filling the little clearing by the pond as an greasy, creeping fog burst forth. 

The figures that emerged were Harry and Hermione, but they were  _ more _ . 

This vision of Harry was regal, imbued with the innate goodness and nobility of Arthur in his prime. Even ghostly and insubstantial, he was better than Ron in every way: muscled, clean, his face filled with sneering distaste. 

Hermione wasn't underfed and haunted by loss. She was regal, haughty and elemental as her curls were tossed by the swirling mist. Her naked skin gleamed and as she smiled at him, her expression a mix of disgust and pity.

_ Your mother confessed that she would have preferred me as a son, would be glad to exchange. . .  _ the ghostly Harry said, his voice low and sibilant.

_ Who wouldn't?  _ the cruelly beautiful Hermione agreed, her eyes scanning over him dismissively.  _ What woman would take you? You are nothing compared to him. _

They embraced and it was a thing of disturbing beauty. Ron saw the perfection in the graceful meeting of their bodies. It was the proper end to a story. It was Arthur and Guinevere, glimpsed through their bed curtains as he guarded their bedchamber. 

The hero getting the girl. 

But that wasn't how their story had gone. The locket had made a mistake. Lancelot had loved Guinevere then. Ron loved Hermione now. Loved everything about her. Harry was his best mate, he knew him almost better than he knew himself. Even if Hermione chose Harry, he knew that they would never be so cruel. 

Raising the sword over his shoulder Ron felt the aching memory of a battlefield, running forward toward the enemy and swinging the heavy blade through the twisted visions of his friends and to the locket itself, striking it so hard that he felt the metal give under him and the sharp edge sink into the cracked surface of the glass. 

It was done. 

Harry loved her like a sister. 

But that didn't matter, because Hermione was furious. As furious as Ron had ever seen her. She sniped and huffed at his stories and refused to look at him, but Ron didn't blame her. He deserved it, and he'd happily spend the rest of his life listening to her righteous anger as long as he got to see her face like this: honest, full of concern, and free from the sneering contempt of her Horcrux doppelganger. 

* * *

“Ron, Where are we going?”

Ron almost dragged Hermione behind him as he sprinted to the second floor and Myrtle's lavatory. 

The inspiration had hit him suddenly as they’d sat in the Room of Requirement, waiting for Harry while Hermione lamented their lack of the sword. Without it they had no way to destroy the remaining Horcruxes, even if they could find them. He understood her worry. It hadn’t just been a sword, it had soaked up all the deadly power of Basilisk venom. 

Then he had realized: If what had made the sword strong enough to destroy the locket had been the Basilisk venom, then they had a chamber full of decaying snake to pilfer some from. 

“Slow down or you're going to pop around a corner and get us hexed!” Hermione demanded again, tugging on his arm as they reached the little side corridor with the entrance to the girl's lavatory. 

“No, I won't,” he replied, unable to keep the cheer from his voice despite the dire straits. “We're here.” 

“I don't need the loo, Ronald.” 

“No, but we need what's underneath it.” Ron raised his brows and waited for her big, beautiful brain to put it together. He wasn't disappointed as her face lit up with recognition and nerves. 

“How're we going to get in?”   


“I remember how Harry opened it, he said the same thing again with the locket. I'm not sure I can repeat it but it couldn't hurt to try.” 

He had to try several times to replicate the strange hissing that Harry had used, but when he got it right, he could feel it. The saliva pooled at the back of his mouth and his tongue fluttered just between his front teeth at the end. The sink moved out of the way with a creak of unused mechanics to reveal the mildewed stone slide and Hermione let out a tiny gasp. 

“Ladies first,” he said, giving her a little bow as she approached the gaping hole where the sink had just been. 

The ride down was just as he remembered, bumpy and fast and exhilarating, spitting him out with a muffled crunch in moss and the remains of hundreds of rats. Hermione was waiting for him, jaw clenched as if she was terrified they'd have to ride another dragon to get out. Though what he actually had planned probably wouldn't make her feel any better. 

_ “Accio Cleansweep Seven,” _ he said, wincing as Hermione flinched at the mention of a broom.

It didn't take long to arrive, zipping down through the open entrance to the chamber and into Ron's waiting hand. 

“Alright. Let's go.”

The tunnel that led to the chamber was shorter than Ron had remembered, the pile of rubble from the tussle with Lockhart really just a short walk from the end of the slide. Every step their feet crunched on things he'd rather not contemplate, and their shoes were soaking through by the time they reached the second door, still standing wide open with the stench of the rotting snake wafting through it. 

Ron had never seen it before, but Hermione clearly recognized the beast whose reflection had petrified her as a child. Her face drained of color, but underneath the pallor her grim and ever present determination remained. She had stuck close to him as they walked, but once they were in the chamber she stepped away and ahead, making her way quickly to Salazar Slytherin's monster. Ron wasn't even sure if she noticed the giant effigy of the wizard’s face in the back of the room, the mouth gaping open clearly where the serpent had slept. But he noticed. He watched as she crossed the room, dirty and tired and infinitely better than any heir of the bigot that had built the chamber. 

He felt out of place and unworthy as she peered into the half-rotted skull, her back straight and her wand outstretched. 

“ _ Divello. _ ” Hermione's voice was clipped, precise, as with a barely perceptible twitch of her wand a great fang tore free of the beast's skull with a sickening crack. She repeated the spell again and again until there was a pile of yellowed, saber-shaped teeth at her feet, glittering dangerously. 

“We should be able to hold them safely,” she said once she had completely rid the skull of its remaining teeth, picking up a fang the size of her forearm and holding it out to Ron. “Just try not to get close to the ends — they’re sharp. Best test it before we carry them out, though. No use risking an accident if it doesn't even work.”

It took Ron a minute to even understand what she meant. 

“‘Hermione, you're doing it,” he said, pulling the Horcrux out from inside his jacket. “Look where we are. You're a Muggle-Born in Salazar Slytherin's cage for his secret murder snake.” He knelt and placed the cup on the damp floor, shivering at the sinister play of the eerie light on its golden surface. “You've got a piece of it in your hand. Think about what a  _ fuck you _ it would be to the old git and every one of the bigoted arseholes that came after him if  _ you _ used it to do in a piece of his last heir's soul.” 

“That would be poetic, wouldn't it?” she whispered, her eyes locked on the Horcrux as she kneeled beside him. In that moment he could see her past self again, the hunger for meaning gleaming in her eyes. 

“It'll be bloody _brilliant_.” 

She brought the fang down hard, grunting as she shoved it into the soft metal of the precious cup. It screamed and water flowed from its mouth in a violent rush, almost enveloping them in a suffocating sphere of liquid before the threat fell apart as the last spark of life left the cup. The fang was disintegrated but the cup was mangled, a giant scorched black hole through one side. 

“See,” Ron whispered, unable to take his eyes off her triumphant face, a wide grin across her face and eyes glistening with tears. “Brilliant.” 

His heart was in his throat as Hermione mounted the broom in front of him, arms full to bursting with the remaining fangs. She didn't even complain, just settled into the circle of his arms, her back pressed tight against him, their wet clothes feeling like nothing between them as he nudged the broom up into the air, flying them through the chamber and up through the tunnel slide to the lavatory. 

They didn't have breath to speak as they ran back through the halls toward the Room of Requirement; they barely had enough to keep sprinting up the stairs. A stitch was setting into Ron's side as he tried to hold tight to his arm full of fangs when Harry turned a corner and almost ran into them. 

He wanted to enjoy the ensuing conversation — it felt like what he'd been waiting for all his life. Hermione was practically bursting at the seams with praise for him, but his brain was working overtime. The final battle had started, and he didn't intend to leave Hermione's side again, but there were things that had to be done. They had to get to Harry and the final Horcruxes, including the damned snake. They had to make sure the castle was fully evacuated. The Room of Requirement was empty as they entered it but for Ginny, Tonks, and an old woman who just had to be Neville's Gran, but they were forgetting something. . . he just couldn't put his finger on it.

“Hang on a moment!” he snapped suddenly, watching Harry shout at Ginny's retreating back through the secret exit and somehow realizing what was missing. “We've forgotten someone!” 

“Who?” Hermione asked, eyes concerned as she looked up at him. 

“The house-elves. They'll all be down in the kitchen won't they?” 

“You mean we ought to get them fighting?” Harry asked. 

“No,” Ron answered gravely, fighting the urge to punch Harry in the face when he was clearly near to cracking under the pressure. “I mean we should tell them to get out. We don't want any more Dobbies, do we? We can't order them to die for us—” 

There was a loud clatter near his feet, and then Hermione's arms were wrapped around his shoulders and her mouth was pressed firmly against his. The kiss was gritty and she pressed so hard against him that it almost hurt, but it was better than all the soft, hot snogs he'd shared in alcoves with Lavender. He couldn't remember dropping the fangs or the broom but his arms were suddenly pulling Hermione tighter to him, savoring the satisfying weight of her in his arms as her feet left the ground and they swayed, her fingers tightening in his hair and a breathy sigh escaping into his mouth as a magic he'd never felt before shocked through him. The feeling of being lost, of never quite fitting, of being an unnecessary and unwanted extra floated away as something else slotted into place. A feeling of rightness, of destiny. 

Harry was protesting as they broke apart for air, arms still tangled around each other. He felt stronger than he ever had before, like he'd felt as battle-hardened Lancelot, and Hermione glowed with the inner fire of rebellion. They'd broken their rule. They couldn't be together until  _ after  _ the bloody war was over with but it didn't matter. This moment was meant to be. They'd put Harry first and made it to the end and Ron would be damned if he was going to miss out on kissing her at least once this go round. “OI! There's a war going on here!” Harry finally shouted, drawing Ron's gaze for a dizzy moment where the image of Arthur's face seemed to linger over his. 

“I know mate,” Ron whispered, turning his eyes back to Hermione and relishing in the feel of imminent victory, because they'd done it, they'd changed something. He could feel it. “So it's now or never, isn't it?”


End file.
